Repair possibilities for Raiden Fighters 2?

[Warp_Rattler]

So a local arcade collector I've dealt with before has been cleaning house and getting rid of a lot of extra stuff. In his most recent craigslist posting he's got a Raiden Fighters 2 board, specified only as "game not working", in a lot with other half-assembled cabs or ones in need of repair. Now, I haven't talked to him yet about the exact "not working" status of the board, so I obviously can only ask this question in the most vague of manners.

Basically, what is the extent to which a busted PCB is user-serviceable? When most PCBs simply "don't work", how often is it something that can potentially be fixed versus something final, like getting zapped with a bad bit of static electricity? Are there people in the shmups community who do more technical repairs? I can wield a soldering iron to a small extent, but anything requireing very small wires or surface mount work is far beyond me. I would imagine repairs wouldn't be cheap, and then I'd have to start looking at the cost of potential repairs vs. just getting a working board (not that I'm too invested in RF2 particularly, but it's a local seller and the chance to get a board on the cheap).

Sorry to be so vague on the specifics; I'm just trying to decide if this could be a worthwhile investigation that could yield a working PCB with a bit of effort, or if by going after a PCB already written off as 'non-working' I'm just wasting effort on what is ultimately junk.

[dpful]

In my experience, 85% or bad boards are broken in very mechanical ways, like loose connectors/chips, dirty contacts, etc.

[IronGiant]

Generally speaking, the more recent the board the less chance you have of repairing it, simply due to the proliferation of surface mounted custom ICs, no schematics, etc. Raiden Fighters 2 is relatively recent (1997).

Having said that, when they are easy to fix then they're really easy due to it being something 'obvious', for example a bent pin on a connector, an EPROM/ROM that isn't seated correctly in its socket, perhaps some physical damage.

Older boards (late 1970s up to the mid 80s) are generally 'easier' to fix but even those that purely use off the shelf TTLs can be a nightmare at times, even with schematics and ease of replacing parts. But overall you stand a much better chance of repairing them.

I'm a repair tech - I've repaired more arcade boards than I've had very hot dinners.

[robivy64]

Also remember that the Seibu SPI hardware writes to flash when reprogramming for a new game. If a reprogramming fails, the board is toast, because the flash is corrupted. There is no way to repair it.